In Exultant Chorus
by TopKat
Summary: Sirius laughs because he remembers. [PostMWPP era, Askaban]


**In Exultant Chorus**

Sirius Black laughed.

He always laughed, they said, because he was crazy - crazy and sad and mad and bad, all together, mixed up in a three-square jail cell.

But somewhere in the confines of guilt and revenge and murder, in his mind, he could remember. And really, that was what kept Sirius laughing - getting hoarser, doggier, by every waking second.

He remembered Home.

His mother, proud and spiky and tall, black hair hanging lank, shaving his head. He would sit silently, never thinking to question, as little spikes of his hair fell all over the floor, and the house-elves hastened to dust them away. His robes were tailored, pristeen, and his brother bounced and gurgled, oblivious. When he was young the days seemed so silent.

He remembered School.

The first day was a hesitant nightmare - Gryffindor welcomed him, but his mind would not, and though every inch of him screamed_ wrong, wrong, wrong, _he focused on the part that was yelling _yes_._ Yes_, in exultant chorus, over and over. He slept and fire burned through his skin.

He remembered James.

Soft-haired and green-eyed and messy and splayed out on the floor - vegetative in sleep, lovable always, and desperate for the little, giggly girls to notice him. And he progressed - Sirius never seemed to change, but James towered, flowered, blossomed into the most beautiful of men. His wants spread their buds wide and Sirius could only watch as James, so sure and confident, kissed the one he'd been waiting forever for. He suspected his bespectacled friend had always been this man - but only then did he recognise it, alive and thriving and pushing out of its bounds.

Jealousy coursed through Sirius' veins.

He remembered Peter.

Not as he had been - this was a mouse rather than a rat, unsure, but with moments that sparkled and made you look twice. He was soft to the touch but misleadingly handsome, despite it - and though he paled in comparison, the marauders found it difficult to love him any less. When he began to slowly dissipate they accepted him, knowing that they had to end sometime. This memory makes Sirius laugh more than others, because they ended. They ended, alright. With a flash and a bang and blood and screams.

And it was so, so fitting.

Once, in fifth year, their notorious foursome had walked the lake in relative silence. They were just watching as the squid swam lazily by, unaware of the emotions bubbling under each boy's skin. One of them, the saddest, sat down suddenly and refused to move. Sirius had whispered sorry, over and over, in exultant chorus, tears and sweat littering his brow as his other two friends looked on. The seated boy stared ahead in silence, and said nothing. There was nothing to say.

His head drew a haze of cold glow and empty sentiments. The world was so, so loud in his teens - rebellion from his parents - simple pleasure, an orgasm or two in the dark, a slick frenzy behind closed doors. Whispered nothings, devoid of sweetness. He locked them at the back, where the dementors couldn't reach.

And all because he remembered Remus.

Bookish and nervous and tired, dark bruises everywhere - under his eyes, down his torso like bites. Bruises of affection littering his jaw and neck, fading the next morning into the lies they really were. Claws and teeth and fur and anger and heat - always heat, whether it was the monthly struggle or curled by the fire, canine, another boy folded over his resting legs. Moments of wonder and question of how a boy could glow, being so small, so ragged and thin - when he ate, nothing changed. When he didn't, there were the tiniest of signs. He smelt like chocolate and pheromone and death. Death lingered in him; a constant shadow he could never expel.

Whispered nothings and yells of exultation,_ right,right,right_, in the dark; oh so softly, the wrongs in the back of their minds were clouded by the pleasure and the words and the passion. Lies crept in through the cracks and letter upon letter upon letter couldn't ever save them.

But he still remembered Remus. Even at the end. Even when there was little else left but that flash of green; the empty, glassy eyes of a faded flower, pressed between the pages of pavement and wife. The soft, rounded edges of the dissipating rat.

And Sirius laughed because there was nothing else left to do - nothing but thin and thin, dogged, stinking and festering and remembering - his mind screaming_ wrong, wrong, wrong _in exultant chorus.


End file.
